The invention relates to an automated coupling and decoupling method between the luff of a sail and mast guiding slides when hoisting and furling a battened mainsail, and a device for performing this method.
In-boom roller furling systems of greatly varying constructions wind the foot of a sail over an approximately horizontally rotatable winding mandrel for reefing in the case of strong wind and thus reduce the sail area to an amount supportable by the ship or roll it away entirely for furling.
The advantage of boom roller furling systems in relation to other systems is that through-battened mainsails having advantageous leech presentation may be used having almost equally good position and performance as in the case of sails having a traditional jiffy reef.
In the case of regatta participants, where performance is important, typically only sails having jiffy reef come into consideration at all, whose approximately horizontal continuous sail battens may be hoisted and/or furled using smooth-running running slides guided on the rear edge of the mast. For reefing, the lower part of the sail is pulled down in folds and bound to the boom using chords, which are typically attached to the sail, by a strong regatta crew. For a small crew, who wants to sail safely and efficiently, only an in-boom furling system comes into consideration because of the better sail position, in spite of its flaws, properties, and known problems.
The main problem is the luff of the sail and its connection to the mast. It is to let the sail run up and down in a smooth-running manner and the luff is to be able to be wound over the winding mandrel jointly with the sail.
Currently, a luff tape made of fabric plastic having correspondingly smaller terminal diameter, in order to be windable, is selected, which is longitudinally displaceable within a special small mast groove, but cannot slip through it.
The winding diameter of the coiled luff tape cannot significantly exceed the diameter of the sailcloth bale, including profile reinforcements, when reefing and furling, because both must be wound on the same mandrel as free of wrinkles as possible. So as not to be entirely filigree in construction, the luff tape is often sewn along its length of the sail in a slightly wavy form, so that the luff winding occurs not only one on top of another, but rather more widely one next to another, with the disadvantage of greater friction in the mast groove, which runs linearly and accordingly warps the sail.
In order to connect the advantageous sail guiding along a tall mast to smooth-running running slides of a battened mainsail as for a jiffy reef, for example, and the operating advantages of an in-boom furling system, the following solution is proposed according to the invention.
Patents which represent the prior art:    U.S. Pat. No. 3,830,182 A (PATTISON) 20 Aug. 1974 (20.08.1974)    U.S. Pat. No. 1,798,772 A (WOOD) 31 Mar. 1931 (31.03.1931)    U.S. Pat. No. 6,371,037 B1 (COOK ET AL) 16 Apr. 2002 (16.04.2002)